With the growth of the Internet and e-commerce, an increasing number of Web sites feature third party advertising. One of the most common types of advertisements is the banner ad, a typically rectangular advertisement on a Web page which generally will link to the advertiser's Web site when a viewer clicks on the banner. Banner ads can contain any combination of text, graphic images, animated graphics, and sound.
Banner ads are produced by embedding HTML code for the ad in the HTML code for the “displaying” Web page. A Web browser downloading a Web page with a banner ad will execute the ad's embedded code and fetch any content required to display the ad on the downloaded Web page. Banner ad content may be stored on the same server hosting the displaying Web page or it may be stored on an ad server, which typically contains content for numerous ads which are delivered for display on Web pages in a sequence (for instance, ad A may be delivered the first time a URL is requested, ad B may be delivered the second time a URL is requested, etc.). Since banner ads often require content to be fetched from an ad server and may also contain content such as video that may take some time to download and execute, banner ads can increase the time required to fully render a requested Web page, a source of frustration to the viewer who requested the page. Another problem is that fetching content from an ad server, particularly when the content is contained in a large file, causes congestion and service latency in the network.
There are additional latency problems associated with fetching advertisements. One problem is that some Web sites use a variable URL, e.g. a URL with a numeric component, to refer to the same image. Even though the image associated with a variable URL may already be in the cache of a requesting client, if a viewer requests a Web page with an ad specified by a variable URL other than the URL stored in the client cache, the same image must be fetched again from the ad server. In addition, these sites also send the image with an instant timeout. This is inefficient and unnecessarily increases network congestion.
Some Web sites use HTML code that loads other HTML code, known as HTML snippets, that contains references to ad images. The use of HTML snippets to create banner ads also has at least one drawback. The problem is that the use of HTML snippets requires the browser to make additional requests to fetch the ad content to complete the Web page rather than issuing only one request to get all the information necessary to download the desired Web page. These additional requests increase network congestion, adding to network latency.
Various approaches have been employed to address these problems. Web page owners may limit the file size of banner ads in an attempt to improve download times, though arguably this reduces the effectiveness of the advertisements since it limits the type of content that is presented to the viewer. Other approaches include sending advertisements when the browser or computer is idle and presenting advertisements in another browser window while the viewer awaits completion of an Internet transaction such as linking to another page.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,740,549 “Information and Advertising Distribution System and Method” to Reilly et al. discloses a system in which content, including advertisements, is sent from a server to a client workstation at regular intervals. Advertisements are preferably sent at night or during long period of user inactivity because the advertising images generally are larger than, for instance, news items, which are generally text files; by sending the advertising content when the user is not using the computer, the content may be updated without compromising the user's active use of the computer. The files containing the advertisements are compressed using known compression techniques. The content is stored in the workstation's local memory and may be subsequently viewed by a workstation user.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,185,586 “Content Display During Idle Time as a User Waits for Information During an Internet Transaction” to Judson discloses a method of displaying “interstitial” material, i.e., displaying material to a viewer while that viewer is waiting for an Internet transaction to be completed. After a requested Web page is downloaded from a server to a client, the same server also transparently downloads an applet to the client, which caches the applet. This applet, which may display advertising when launched, is launched when the client links to a second Web page from the originally-downloaded Web page. While the second Web page is downloaded, the applet is launched and a “mini page,” which may be an advertisement, is displayed to the viewer.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,314,451 “Ad Controller for Use in Implementing User-Transparent Network-Distributed Advertising and for Interstitially Displaying an Advertisement So Distributed” to Landsman et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 6,317,761 “Technique for Implementing Browser-Initiated User-Transparent Advertising and for Interstitially Displaying an Advertisement, so Distributed Through a Web Browser in Response to a User Click-Stream” to Landsman et al. disclose a method and system of displaying interstitial advertisements. An HTML tag is embedded in a Web page. This tag contains two components: the first component “politely” downloads (i.e., downloads at a time when the browser is otherwise idle, thus reducing interference with other communications applications) and instantiates a Java applet at the client browser while the second component specifies the address of an advertising management system. The applet transparently downloads advertising files from the advertising management system, thus “decoupling” advertising content from the displaying Web page. Advertising files downloaded from the advertising management system are displayed to the user on an interstitial basis in response to a user click stream which indicates the start of an “interstitial interval,” such as when a user clicks on a link to another Web page.
None of the prior art discussed here discusses a solution for improving delivery of a Web page's ads during “live” browsing of the Web page. Additionally, the prior art mentioned above does not reduce the network congestion associated with fetching ad images corresponding to variable URLs and HTML snippets. Furthermore, the use of interstitial ads does not guarantee that the viewer will actually view the ad. A viewer may simply close the window of an interstitial ad without actually viewing the content of the window. It is more likely that a viewer will view and interact with an ad if it is featured on the same Web page the reviewer originally requested.
It is an object of this invention to decrease network congestion and latency associated with downloading Web pages containing advertisements during “live” browsing of the World Wide Web.